Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me.

Went to see Broken Social Scene play at Deer Lake Park this past Tuesday.



Arrived at the venue as The Stills were onstage. I saw them back in April just before the release of their new album. Once again, they played a good and energetic set.



Went to the merch booth. This is the number of different men's shirt designs they had available for each band playing:

Sam Roberts Band - 4
The Stills - 4
Jets Overhead - 3
Broken Social Scene - 1.......WTF???

The BSS shirt they were selling was horrible. All it had was their name in capital letters with no design or picture whatsoever on the shirt. I could have created a better design in 2 minutes in MS Paint.

Broken Social Scene played a solid set with the time frame they were given in this co-headlining show. The vocal mix in the first couple songs were a bit low, but eventually corrected. This also happened during the Sam Roberts set.





Joining them onstage this night included Torquil and Evan from Stars, as well as Liam from The Stills helping out in the horns section.



Lisa Lobsinger handled most of the female vocal duties with some support from Julie Penner. No appearance by Amy Millan at this show. We'll have to wait until September. The most of them I counted playing onstage at one point was 12 people.



KC Accidental was amazing. It hit me like a giant wave.....and for a few seconds, I was under it.

Other highlights from their 1hr 20min set included 7/4 Shoreline, Fire Eye'd Boy, Cause = Time, and Ibi Dreams Of Pavement.

They closed with It's All Gonna Break, as I wondered if I would have the chance to see them perform again.....let's hope so.



It was funny to watch a lot of the people in the front leave after the BSS set. A huge group of youngsters wearing Sam Roberts t-shirts then made their way towards the stage.

Musically, Sam Robert's set didn't do much for me.....though I must give him credit for his energy and stage presence. He was also able to get the crowd involved well. The audience seemed much rowdier for his performance, with some crowd surfing taking place. In addition, the lighting for his set was quite well done.

PJ Gorge Day 2

Sun. July 23

Didn't get much sleep for the night. Woke up from the rays of the sun beating down on our tent.

Getting mohawks down at the Gorge.







BBQed some food and lounged around for a bit.






We then drove down to the Columbia River for a quick swim. The view was spectacular.





Got back to the campsite and still had a few hours to kill before the show. It was super hot the whole day, with the temperature at around 110*F, so we tried our best to stay in the shade.





We entered the venue early this time and relaxed for a bit before Pearl Jam hit the stage. They opened the show with Severed Hand as the sun was still shining bright. We couldn't help but still smile while trying to dodge the glare of the sun.....after all, we were at the most beautiful venue seeing one of the best live bands around.



Highlights for me included Animal, Do The Evolution, Rats, Jeremy, Spin The Black Circle, and Crazy Mary. Eddie did a solo version of I Won't Back Down to open the first encore. Big Wave and Comatose sounded great from the new album. Eddie appeared on the roof of the sound mixer once again this night to sing Given To Fly. He also sang on Little Wing this time around.



The show wasn't as strong overall as the night before, but it was still good and very enjoyable nonetheless. As Mike played the Star Spangled banner at the end, it looked like they were gonna perform one more song after that with Eddie remaining onstage talking to Stone. Not sure what was said but after Mike finished the song, the guys took their bows and called it a night.

Set lasted 2hrs 30mins.

Setlist:

Severed Hand
Corduroy
World Wide Suicide
God's Dice
Animal
Do The Evolution
In Hiding
Green Disease
Even Flow
Marker In The Sand
Wasted Reprise
Betterman / Save It For Later
Army Reserve
Garden
Rats
Whipping
Jeremy
Why Go

I Won't Back Down
Life Wasted
Big Wave
Satan's Bed
Spin The Black Circle
Alive

Given To Fly
Little Wing
Crazy Mary
Comatose
Fuckin Up
Yellow Ledbetter / Star Spangled Banner

Got back to the campsite and hung out to enjoy the last night of the tour. We got in a circle and shared stories of the band, of our travels, and of ourselves. It was pretty special.

After that, we went on some more drunken wanderings that included human barrel rolling, crashing campsite parties, and other sorts of activities.



It was an early departure the next morning. I had about 2hrs of sleep for the night so I floated in and out of consciousness at points during the day. We had the ceremonial check mark of the last date of the tour, then it was time for all of us to head home.

PJ Gorge Day 1

Sat. July 22

We left for the Gorge on Saturday morning to catch Pearl Jam play the final two shows of the second leg of their tour.




Along the way, we stopped to meet up with some friends and grab some groceries for the weekend.....we kinda went overboard on our supply of food.






We arrived at the Gorge campsite with little time before the show, so we headed straight for the venue and decided to setup the tent afterwards. There was a pretty long lineup to get in, so we were fortunate to pick up our tickets and be able to slide through some of the lineup in the process. Soon after getting inside the venue, we could hear the eruption of the crowd as Pearl Jam got onstage so we quickly rushed to our seats as the opening song Wash was played.

Eddie and company were on fire this night and performed an incredible set. The show was sold out and the Gorge was packed with 20,000 strong.



Mike McCready plays his guitar like a maniac, running laps around the stage while pulling off crazy riffs. Watching him perform is a show within itself. On this night, he did his sweet behind-the-neck solo during Even Flow.

The songs off the new album sounded great, especially World Wide Suicide and Life Wasted. Daughter was tagged with a rare version of It's Okay.



Driving up to the Gorge from Vancouver, the weather switched a few times from cloudy to sunny, and even had a bit of rain at one point. Down at the venue for the show, there were some scattered clouds in the sky mixed with the sun. As the sun began to set, it created a really beautiful red sky. That combined with the mountains and the Columbia River in the background made the view at the Gorge absolutely breathtaking.




During Porch, the last song of the first encore, Eddie used his guitar to reflect the light off a hanging disco ball onto the surrounding audience. For the start of the second encore, Vedder appeared on the roof of the sound mixer located in the middle of the audience and sang Last Kiss. The band also pulled out a rare performance of Dirty Frank. They ended the show with Yellow Ledbetter, tagged with a sweet instrumental version of Little Wing, followed by Mike playing the Star Spangled Banner.

Other highlights for me from the 2hr 50min show included Down, Black, Insignificance, Blood, Once, State Of Love And Trust, Go, and Baba O'Riley.



Setlist:

Wash
Corduroy
Hail Hail
World Wide Suicide
Severed Hand
Given to Fly
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
Even Flow
Down
I Am Mine
Unemployable
Daughter / It's Okay
Gone
Black
Insignificance
Life Wasted
Blood

Footsteps
Once
Alive
State Of Love And Trust
Crown Of Thorns
Leash
Porch

Last Kiss
Inside Job
Go
Baba O'Riley
Dirty Frank
Rockin' In The Free World
Yellow Ledbetter / Little Wing / Star Spangled Banner

After the show, we walked back to the campsite, setup our tent and relaxed for awhile. We busted out some tunes on the guitar, then went on some drunken wanderings in the middle of the night.

flow and steer

Went to see Wil perform last night at the Buffalo Club.

Kevin Mackenzie, who plays in the local band Damn The Diva, opened with a few of his friends. I actually used to listen to his band back in highschool. My Grade 11 English teacher was the one who introduced me to their music. He used to work at a restaurant with Kevin where they would sing while waiting on tables.

Playing with Kevin on this night included Vicky Sjohall, formerly of the awesome band Cherrybomb with Jenny Galt. I was actually looking forward to this set.....too bad the crowd was shitty and talking the entire time. Looks like the no cover charge before 9:30pm on this night kinda backfired, and brought in a lot of people that didn't care about listening to the music.

Wil and Pat Steward put on an outstanding performance as usual. They have such a great chemistry together and can feed off each other so well....and the crazy part is they don't practice or rehearse. They pretty much go onstage and giv'er. The new songs sounded good. Wil is just about done recording his new album and he'll be getting it mixed and mastered shortly. They're hoping for an October release. If not, the album will be pushed back until early next year as the major labels focus on releasing the big albums in November and December in time for the Christmas push.

Wil as usual divided his performance in 2 sets, playing 1hr in his first set and 1hr 15mins in his second time around.

Near the end of the second set, he called Shaun Verreault from Wide Mouth Mason onto the stage to play a song with them. Shaun and Wil toured together earlier this year and did an incredible job. Their cover of Little Wing they played together back at their February show is still one of my favourite song performances so far this year.

They covered the Gomez song Get Miles and had a HUGE jam session and lots of impromptu soloing. The song went on for literally 30 minutes! At one point, Wil left the stage and let Shaun and Pat take over for awhile.

Wil and Pat ended the show with the 4 String Song, having another rockout with Wil playing drumsticks on the body of his guitar.

One foot in front of the other.......

Got a new job recently. I'll be booking and promoting shows for some local Vancouver bands. I'm pretty excited about this opportunity.

***

The new MG demo If I Was A Tidal Wave sounds great.

...And the sky might catch on fire and burn the axis of the world that's why.